Twilight Sins (Kulikov Bratva Book 1)

The fairytales left out the part where you tell a man you love him and he promptly locks you in a room for two days. Even if I had access to a library, they don’t make self-help books for this kind of thing. I’m on my own here.

Literally and figuratively.

I lie back on the guest bed and stare up at the ceiling.

When I first got here, I thought Yakov’s room was bare. The man isn’t big on sentimentality, clearly. Weeks spent in his house and the closest thing I’ve found to keepsakes are the pictures of his siblings stuffed in his desk drawer.

But the guest room is a new level of barren.

There are no photographs, no curated art. It looks and feels and smells beige. The meticulously dusted shelves are decorated with mindless knickknacks and decorative books about ancient botany and engine design that no one in their right mind would ever actually read.

Trapped as I am with nothing to do and no one to talk to, I’m obviously not in my right mind. If anyone comes to visit me, I could make their head spin with all the facts I know about Egyptian gardens and the first known illustrations of plants from the Neolithic Revolution.

Hell, give me Gregory. I’ll talk his fuzzy little ears off about the history of legumes. Which is probably exactly why Yakov didn’t give me Gregory. Can’t risk me getting too cozy in my prison cell.

The lock on the door shifts midafternoon and I don’t even sit up. There’s no point.

The only person to come in or out of this room for days has been Hope. The first day she came in with my dinner, I sprinted past her for the open door. A massive guard blocked my path. I bounced off of him like a racquetball.

“He thought you’d try that,” Hope sighed softly.

I tried to talk to her, to get her to talk to Yakov for me, to make sense of what was happening. Does he hate me? Will I be here forever? What’s going to happen?

Hope just shook her head.

When she came back in for breakfast the next day, she didn’t say anything to me. Same with lunch and dinner. Yakov instructed her to freeze me out, I’m sure.

So I keep staring at the ceiling as the door opens. What’s the point? Why bother?

“I’m going to go insane in here,” I mumble to no one in particular.

“I’ll pass that along to him,” a deep voice says.

I jolt up so fast I slip off the side of the bed. “Who are you?” Then it clicks. “You’re the driver.”

He grins. “Happy to hear I made an impression.”

It was dark the night that Yakov and I left the restaurant together. The driver never fully turned around, but it’s not the kind of profile you forget. As if the mixture of sharp cheekbones and dark, wavy hair isn’t enough, he also has vibrant green eyes. They’re the most interesting I’ve ever seen next to…

His mouth tips into a smirk as one more thing clicks in my head.

“You’re Yakov’s brother.”

“Nikandr Kulikov.” He gives a small wave as he drops into the armchair in the corner and crosses an ankle over the other knee. “Yakov said you were smart. Well… not recently. The last two days have mostly been about how you are stubborn and hellbent on your own destruction. But before that, I heard good things.”

I snort. “Yeah, right. Yakov didn’t talk to you about me.”

“Which is how I know he would only have good things to say.” He taps his lips. “If Yakov hates you, he talks endless shit. If he likes you, he doesn’t mention you at all. He’s protective of people that way.”

“What does it say when he locks you in a bedroom for two days?” I snap. “Should I expect a marriage proposal soon?”

“He didn’t put you in here to be cruel. He really is trying to take care of you.”

“Then tell him I want my cat.”

Nikandr laughs. “That cat… That might be the most surprising part of all of this. Yakov hates cats. When I saw that cat in his office, I knew things were serious.”

My jaw falls open. “Gregory is hanging out in his office now?”

Et tu, kit-tay? My God, is there no end to the treachery?

“Is that really what you took from what I just said?” he asks.

“Sorry,” I say sarcastically with a roll of my eyes. “All this cruel and unusual torture has gone to my head.”

“Five-star suite and three gourmet meals a day is torture?”

I throw my arms wide. “What would you call this?”

“It could be worse,” he warns in a low, serious voice, leaning forward to plant his elbows on his knees. “There are other rooms in this house where you’d be much less comfortable.”

I joked about a dungeon when I first got here, but maybe I wasn’t so far off. Goosebumps bloom across my skin. I wrap my arms tightly around my chest to stave them off.

“I can’t wait to get out of this place,” I whisper.

Nikandr stares at me for a long second before he blows out a breath. “Talking to people who are into each other but refuse to acknowledge it is a real bummer, you know? How does that saying go: you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink? Well, you two are horses standing in a giant fucking trough of water, but you won’t take so much as a damn sip.”

I frown. “The first person I can talk to in days and you don’t make any sense. Great.”

“She’s funny, too. God,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “My brother is so fucked.”

I know exactly what Nikandr is saying, but I can’t think about it now. I poured my heart out for Yakov and he locked me up. That says more than anything else how he’s feeling about me.

Yet I still have an ache in my chest that is frustratingly Yakov-sized. He’s the reason I’m in here without anyone to talk to, but I still miss him.

Nikandr thinks his brother is fucked? He should take a good, hard look in my direction.

“Anyhow.” Nikandr stands up with a groan. “I just wanted to come meet the woman who has my brother in such a bind.”

“You’re confused again,” I snap. “I’m the one who is bound.”

His smile fades away. “My brother isn’t an easy man to get along with. He holds the people around him to a high standard. But he holds himself to an even higher one. If he tells you he’s going to take care of you, there isn’t a single fucking thing in the universe that is going to stop him. Not even you.”

My dumb heart jolts again. “So I should be grateful he wants to take care of me so much that he locked me up?”

“Yes, you should be,” he says. “Because if you were anyone else, he never would have agreed to help you in the first place. He would have let you be killed. The fact he didn’t means more than you know.”

I’m so stunned that I don’t even bother making a run for it when the door opens. I stare at it long after it has closed.

Everything Nikandr said circles around in my head for hours. It’s all I can think about as I shower in the afternoon to pass some time. The thoughts circle faster when Hope brings me dinner with a white chocolate mocha on the side.

I ask her who put the meal plan together, but she won’t say anything. I catch a tight-lipped smile on her face as she heads out the door, though.

Then it’s hours and hours of lying awake in bed. Hope brought me a stack of clothes yesterday, but no pajamas. So I’ve been sleeping in my bra and underwear. It’s not like there’s anyone around to care either way.

I’m staring up at the same ceiling I’ve been staring at for two days when I hear someone at the door. I pull the comforter up to my neck just as the door opens and Yakov walks in.

For a second, I’m stunned.

Two days without him has weakened my defenses. All I’ve thought about is how pissed I am at him for locking me up, but now, all I can do is take him in.

It’s like the night I first saw him. Soft moonlight and shadows paint the planes of his face and his dark hair is effortlessly tousled. He’s a dark dream standing in front of me.

“The door is unlocked. If you can stop trying to kill yourself, it will stay that way,” he explains in a melancholy rumble.

Nope, not a dream. In my dream, he’d already be naked.

“Weird apology, but thanks.”

His eyes narrow. “It’s not an apology. It’s a mercy.”

“Did you and your brother coordinate your speeches? He said something similar. Apparently, I should thank you for locking me up. It means you really care.” My hands are shaking. Just having him close is unraveling my good sense. “Did you send your brother in to butter me up?”

“I don’t need any help with that.”

My face flames and I’m glad it’s dark in here. “Then what? You sent in a spy to make sure I was calm?”

“I didn’t send him in. He came on his own. I just didn’t stop him.”

He could have, though. The implication is tucked away under his words. Nikandr, like everyone else in Yakov’s life, follows his lead. He commands; they go.

“Do you ever get tired of ordering everyone around?” I ask.

“Only when people refuse to listen.” He drags a hand through his hair. I can tell it isn’t the first time he’s done it tonight. “I came in here to make sure you were ready to behave.”

I roll my eyes. “I’ll be a good little prisoner if that’s what you’re asking.”

Before the words are even out of my mouth, Yakov is across the room. The comforter falls around my waist and he’s kneeling on the bed in front of me. There isn’t a single place where we touch, but I feel him everywhere. Our nearness is like an electrical charge in the air. My entire body tingles.

“I’m doing all of this for your own good,” he growls. “I’m trying to make sure you keep breathing, and all you want to do is bitch at me about how I’m doing it. Why?”

The raw truth bursts out of me before I can stop myself.

“I told you I loved you and you locked me up and threw away the key! I’m pissed, Yakov.” My chest is rising and falling fast. I can’t catch my breath. “I’m mad at you. And I missed you. And I don’t know who I hate more: you or myself.”

I’m breathing heavily, but Yakov is immovable. Unreadable.

My entire self—body and soul—is laid bare in front of him.

And he might as well be a statue.

His eyes drift from mine and slip down to my chest. It’s only a second, but it’s long enough for me to see the flash of desire there. Then he jerks his gaze away. “I need to know if you’re going to behave, Luna.”

That’s all he cares about. No confession. No sign that he feels the same way.

He needs obedience. Another person to follow his orders and not cause waves.

My heart cracks, but I force myself to nod. “Yes.”

He drags a hand through his hair again and heads for the door. “You can sleep wherever you want. Here… Somewhere else… Wherever.”

I pull the blanket up to my shoulders again. “Okay.”

He pauses in the doorway. He glances back, but doesn’t meet my eyes. “But if you go behind my back again, you’ll beg for me to lock you in this room.”